Monday, 30 March 2015

Having landed back in the UK fresh from touring the US, today
Maisie Williams sets foot on the Doctor Who TARDIS to take up a guest
role in the hit BBC One show that returns to our screens this Autumn.

Maisie has already found global fame and is renowned for her role as Arya Stark in the international fantasy drama series Game of Thrones. She also starred in the one-off docu-drama Cyberbully and was cast as one of the leads of Carol Morley’s drama The Falling. As
well as beinga three-time Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee, in
February of this year she was awarded with a Shooting Star Award at the
Berlin Film Festival.

On her first day on set Maisie Williams
said, “I'm so excited to be working on Doctor Who as it’s such a big and
important part of British Culture. I can’t wait to meet the cast and
crew and start filming, especially as we’ll be shooting not too far from
my home town.”

Steven Moffat, lead writer and Executive Producer,
added, “We’re thrilled to have Maisie Williams joining us on Doctor
Who. It’s not possible to say too much about who or what she’s playing,
but she is going to challenge the Doctor in very unexpected ways. This
time he might just be out of his depth, and we know Maisie is going to
give him exactly the right sort of hell.”

Bursting with drama, wit and heart, the show continues filming with two period adventures - ‘The Girl Who Died’
written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat, and ‘The Woman Who Lived’
by Catherine Tregenna. Starring Peter Capaldi (The Doctor) and Jenna
Coleman (Clara Oswald), the duo continue to time travel through epic
adventures Directed by Ed Bazalgette (BBC One’s 18th Century drama Poldark).

Doctor
Who has had a decade of success since its re-launch and is one of BBC
One’s most highly regarded dramas. The much-loved brand is already a
phenomenon delivering on a global scale, with the last series’ (series
8) consolidated average at 7.4 million.
The BBC Cymru Wales produced drama will return to BBC One this Autumn with further casting to be announced in due course.

The Eighth Doctor's next adventure is unveiled; the Doom Coalition is coming!

“I couldn’t help noticing. Just then… Another personality emerged. Was that Seven? Ten?”

In October 2015 the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) and his companion Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker)
will head into a brand new era of Doctor Who, as the TARDIS is recalled
to Gallifrey by the Time Lords. And they will be battling a new foe
known only as The Eleven…

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition is
an epic saga that will span four box sets (a total of sixteen episodes)
forming one breathtaking inter-connecting saga that will push the
Doctor’s bravery and resourcefulness to its limits.

“The overall story of Doom Coalition was devised by myself and Ken Bentley over the course of many walks to the studio,” says producer David Richardson, “Our
framework has been fleshed out by a fantastic team of writers, and
realised by a brilliant cast – and I can’t wait for the roller-coaster
to begin in October!”

“Doom Coalition is unlike anything we’ve attempted before,” says director Ken Bentley. “It’s
on a scale that we hope will satisfy loyal listeners. It’s also a new,
completely stand-alone adventure, making it a great place to start if
you’re listening to Doctor Who on audio for the very first time.”

The first box set will see a new addition to the TARDIS team when gifted philologist Helen Sinclair steps aboard in the second episode.

“Helen is from 1963,” explains David. “She was, in part,
inspired by Doctor Who’s first producer Verity Lambert – she’s a driven,
career-minded woman in a male-dominated profession. And she’s a
head-strong and capable companion in the mould of Barbara Wright, Sarah
Jane Smith and Tegan Jovanka.

Helen is played by Hattie Morahan, whose many leading credits include Bodies, Eternal Law, The Bletchley Circle and the upcoming film Mr Holmes.

“Hattie had been on our radar for some time and we’d been waiting for the right role to come along. When we were recording Dark Eyes 4
Hattie’s name came up during conversation and Paul got very
enthusiastic, telling us how much he’d like to work with her. The pieces
just fell into place. It was the most effortless casting ever!”

Doom Coalition’s
first episode also introduces a brand new villain – albeit one that the
Doctor has been batting throughout his lives… The Eleven is a Time Lord
who retains each one of his personalities every time he regenerates;
now in his Eleventh incarnation, he is an insane sociopath. Captured by
the Seventh Doctor and placed in confinement on Gallifrey, the Eleven
has been contained for many years. But now he has escaped…

The Eleven is played by Mark Bonnar, who was recently seen in Channel 4’s Catastrophe, and won critical acclaim in The Line of Duty. His other leading credits include Shetland, Psychoville and Paradox.

The last adventure for the Eighth Doctor was the Doctor Who - Dark Eyes saga. Dark Eyes 4 was released in March, and from 1st April goes to a full-release price of £40 on CD and £35 on Download. However, the full Dark Eyes bundle will stay at £80 for all four series!

Also, every issue comes with an original
humour strip and competitions. In issue one, readers can win a set of
the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor Vinyl figures. The first issue
will also feature an exclusive code to download comic strip characters
into Doctor Who Legacy free-to-play game.